Seeing Her Smile
by IndependenceDayChild17
Summary: When he'd said they were gods he hadn't known what that meant.   Wash reflects on his choices of the past, and the present. Sort of a sequel to The Number Ten.


Wash sat behind the controls of Serenity staring at the stars. Whenever someone asked, he told him or her he'd joined flight school to see the stars, which was true in a way. The last few days on Earth had been a mess, and the smog had clouded the sky centuries before. Sometimes Wash missed seeing the Big and Little Dippers, but he was just glad he had survived to see any stars at all after the Earth was destroyed.

He thought part of his desire to fly had to do with the five claustrophobics that were contained in his head, but he pushed them out of his mind. He was Hoban Washburne, and he wouldn't let the others come out. Not today.

It was always like this when Zoe was gone. He could feel the other others pushing at him in his mind, trying to make their way to the surface to say something. He wouldn't let that happen. Zoe was supposed to be coming back today, and he would not let Wash be gone when she got here.

Sometimes Wash missed all the other voices. It was so lonely pushing them away, not letting anyone near, not having all the information he used to have. Wash wondered if Echo felt the same way. The last time he'd seen her, he'd shown her Zoe, and what she could do for him. Echo had just smiled, and seemed to think it was silly to limit herself to being one person.

Every ten years they would get together at the exact same time at the exact same place on the exact same planet, every ten years for the past four hundred and ninety years. It had been 2027 when they realized they had stopped aging. Someone in the corners of Wash's mind was trying to tell him a reason for why they had stopped aging, but he shut them out. Wash couldn't help remembering the first time Alpha had talked to the composited Echo though.

When he'd said they were gods he hadn't known what that meant.

Sometimes Wash worried about Echo. She had never really seemed to accept the fact that they weren't aging, and she had never stopped being the world's savior. Everywhere Wash went, he saw things she had manipulated, maybe inadvertently, but she was always there. He could see the echoes of her actions everywhere. For the one that had denied they were gods, she sure seemed to act like one.

Wash wouldn't deny that it was tempting to influence the future of the world and then see that future happen. He and Echo hadn't always been apart, and he liked to think that sometimes, she could see his actions reflected in the future.

He had realized that he didn't want that anymore, though, the day he saw Zoe. She had been a young girl at the time, maybe sixteen, and he'd followed her through her life until he found a good way to enter it. Maybe it was a little creepy, but half the people in Wash's head had done creepier things.

Wash knew that one day, he would have to tell Zoe who he was. He had thought about it a lot, mostly when she was gone, and seeing her smile when she saw him always put him off. He wondered if she would still smile if she knew; if she would have married him; if she would have even given him a second thought.

He would have to tell Zoe before he saw Echo again. Ten years was too long a time for her not to notice he wasn't aging, but maybe if he timed it right she would be able to accept him, and he could introduce her to Echo. Wash laughed out loud thinking about what they would talk about.

The laugh sounded wrong. Too crazy for Wash, and he could suddenly feel his grasp slipping as the others pushed their way to the forefront of his mind. He felt like he was drowning and the onslaught of voices reminded him why he had given up his Alpha persona.

Wash was almost completely gone when Zoe and Mal rushed into the room, yelling about some trouble they had gotten into that was now following them. His body had slipped out of Wash's control, and he stared blankly at Mal, who looked towards him with crazy eyes, a glint of amusement at their current situation fading as he noticed Wash's inaction.

And then Zoe smiled at him, and that's all it took.


End file.
